Cauvery dispute: Act before it’s too late

The Supreme Court’s directive to the Centre to notify the final award of the Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal is a symptom of the malaise of inaction on the part of our political system towards casting aside political considerations in taking almost any decision concerning the whole of the country.

This national practice of procrastination in all issues that throw up difficulties in terms of finding equitable solutions has led to such indecision, bordering on paralysis, as to force the apex court to keep ordering our leaders to act. A distinct lack of a non-partisan perspective comes through in the current impasse in a long-running dispute between two major states over sharing the waters of the life-giving Cauvery river, which rises in Karnataka and flows through Tamil Nadu to the sea, its waters also sustaining certain areas in Kerala and Puducherry.
This crisis of supply and demand for water in poor monsoon years is not new; its genesis is traceable to the early 1900s. What exacerbates the present predicament is not only very poor successive monsoons — southwest and northeast — last year but also the impending elections in Karnataka casting such an influence on the decision-making that not to take a decision seems to suit our politicians the most. Given the present political dispensations in Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, it should, theoretically, have been possible for the UPA-led Union government to act in accordance with best practices after clear legal rulings in this regard. But no, an eye on Assembly polls and its possible effect on parliamentary polls, which are also virtually around the corner, seem to render the stakes so high as to thrust further inaction on a government that must be seen to act lest even basic governance issues get neglected.
The extreme reluctance of one state to release any water, which may have pushed the other to sue for damages, may have a deleterious effect on the federal nature of India. Lower riparian states have their rights, as per law, but the principle is being overlooked purely for political reasons. Everyone understands the grave difficulties monsoon failures impose upon the peoples of an agriculture-based economy. Given the patterns of the monsoons and of water use as demand for the precious commodity keeps rising, it is only fair that distress is shared equally by the people who enjoy the nature’s bounty in its good years. In the light of global warming and its possible negative effect on the efficacy of future monsoons over Asia, it’s vital that everyone abides by the law, or else social tensions will only rise. If only our politicians could see the broader picture.